And how exactly did he dispute her? It wasn't as if he could point to a marriage built on mutual respect and esteem. His only option was to protect her from herself.

The trip to Kettering was more unbearable than he had imagined, beginning with the ugly departure from St. James Square. Claudia would not even look at him. Pale, she clung to Sophie, whispering in her ear as Sophie sobbed against her shoulder. They clung to one another so fiercely that Julian seriously contemplated forcing Claudia along just to get Sophie into the chaise. But at last Sophie let go, apparently giving in to defeat, and Julian had fairly stuffed her into the chaise. As they pulled away from the small courtyard onto St. James Square, Claudia called out to Sophie, reassuring her that Eugenie and Ann would never stand for this injustice, either. Worse, old Tinley stood beside her, hunched at the shoulders and shaking a liver-spotted fist in the air at his wicked employer.

Things went steadily downhill from there. Sophie sobbed uncontrollably as the chaise weaved slowly through the narrow streets of London. Just when Julian thought she couldn't possibly shed another tear, the wailing would begin all over again. When they reached the outskirts of London-and he was fairly confident she would not bolt from the chaise-he made the driver stop so that he could climb up on the seat with him, much to that man's surprise. Julian perched beside him, wincing and pulling his hat lower and lower with every wail that drifted up to them, until the brim of his beaver hat practically covered his ears and eyes.

Fortunately, they were treated to a full moon, which made their travel easier, but Julian imagined every village through which they passed must have believed a madwoman was escaping, so loud was Sophie's fury.

They reached the mammoth Georgian house that served as the Kettering seat by dawn's first light. Sophie had long since sobbed herself to sleep, and as Julian lifted her in his arms, he was reminded of the many nights he had carried her to her own bed after she had crawled into his, having been frightened by thunder or something under her bed.

How extraordinary that little girl had become the woman in his arms.

He hated Kettering Hall.

So much did he despise his country house that he left before the sun was directly overhead, with very little sleep and what little breakfast he was able to choke down. He took a horse from the stables instead of the chaise so that he might quickly escape this tomb of memories, and left a wretched, sobbing Sophie in the foyer, held firmly in the thick arms of Miss Brillhart, Kettering Hall's housekeeper. Miss Brillhart, bless her, understood the situation quite clearly, and had urged him on. Julian tried desperately to close his ears to Sophie's plaintive wail, had even tried to reason with her one last time, but she wouldn't listen to him. She called him a beast and a few other choice names, and in the end, he had been forced to walk out the door without looking back. He was doing the right thing!

Perhaps, but he avoided the family cemetery all the same, riding around the north side of the estate so he would not have to see the remnants of another time he had supposedly done the right thing. The elaborate headstone at Valerie's grave-an angel, rising high above all other markers-was the constant and stark reminder of his attempts to protect another sister. Or rather, his bloody failure to save her life.

A cold shiver ran through him; with a hard spur to the flanks of his mount, Julian tried to push the memory of the unhappiest event of his life from his mind by pushing his mount. In truth, Valerie had always been sickly, although she had seemed to improve in the last two years of her life. At the prime age of eighteen, a year or so after Eugenie married, Julian had taken her to London for the Season, squiring her to all the best soirees and balls. She had loved the whirl of activity, and though she was pale and a little too thin, she had captured the attention of more than one young fop.

It was in the course of that spring that she contracted the fever that decimated her.

After a fortnight, she had not improved, and Julian could recall even now that dull, aching fear that had lodged in his heart. Instinctively, he had sent to France for Louis and Eugenie and at the same time brought the finest doctors to Valerie's bedside, insisting they try every remedy, even those they claimed experimental. Nothing seemed to work; Valerie's illness dragged on, weakening her. In complete desperation, he had brought her to Kettering and the long-time family doctor who had nursed her since she was a baby.

He had been, Julian bleakly recalled, quite convinced Dr. Dudley could cure her one last time. To that man's credit, Dr. Dudley had tried everything he could. Nonetheless, Julian had almost strangled the kindly doctor when he at last said aloud what Julian already knew deep in his soul.

Nothing could save Valerie.

It was only a matter of time.

Except that Julian refused to accept it, railing violently at anyone who dared try to console him. So Dr. Dudley had reluctantly sent to Bath for a colleague who had experimented with some promising new medicinal combinations. Dr. Moore came at once, examined a delirious Valerie, then very clearly warned Julian that his new elixir was highly experimental and perhaps even deadly. But there had been no other option-both doctors agreed she surely would die without it.

Julian ordered she be given the elixir. He had done what was best for her.

But the poor girl reacted badly to the potion, and was too frail to withstand the ravages of the prolonged fever. He did not leave her side, even when exhaustion pushed him to the brink of collapse, but within days, she slipped quietly into eternal sleep while he held her in his arms and begged her to live.

The pain, dull astonishment, and fury with God had almost destroyed him. He had loved his sister with all his heart and could not bear to think he had helped to kill her, had broken his vow to his father to keep her safe and well.

His mount crashed through a grove of trees, but heedless of the low-hanging branches that slashed at his arms and legs, Julian drove the horse forward.

He had loved Phillip, too, like a brother. Phillip, who had been his constant companion since they were lads, inseparable into adulthood. Smaller than the other Rogues, Phillip had always been something of a ruffian, always pushing the very boundaries of propriety and societal acceptance. Julian had long thought his behavior was a sort of unconscious effort to make up for the lack of physical stature. But after Valerie's death, he began to view Phillip's conduct with increasing apprehension. It seemed too ribald, even for Phillip. Nothing seemed to satisfy him; not copious amounts of whiskey, not gaming, not his pick of Madame Farantino's women-even two of them at once.

The horse burst through the tree line and into an open meadow, and Julian bent low over the steed's neck, urging him faster.

He had tried to save Phillip, too. At first, he had offered enough money to clear the enormous debts in exchange for Phillip's sobriety, if only for a time. Anything would have been an improvement. But Phillip had scoffed at his offer, thanked him for his needless pity with not a little sarcasm, then heatedly swore that if Julian ever called his character into question again, he would gladly shoot him without a single thought.

Having throughly wounded Phillip's pride, Julian could do nothing but keep a silent vigil, choosing to accompany his friend on lewd excursions that repulsed him, convinced that if he was with Phillip, he could at least keep him from harm.

And then came Claudia.

Julian slowed the roan, released his grip of the reins and straightened, rubbing the nape of his neck to erase the familiar despair that was suddenly raging through him.

Claudia Whitney had walked into that ballroom and had turned everything upside down. He had known, of course, that Phillip had set his blurred sights on her. It had actually amused him until that night, until he saw her again for the first time since Valerie's funeral. Nothing was ever the same again. Oh, he continued to accompany Phillip along his path of debauchery, and on the rare occasions Phillip was sober, he even attempted to persuade him to change his conduct--but not nearly enough or as strongly as he should have. No, no, no, not enough at all, and he and the Lord above knew very well why he had not. Because, thank you, he was hopelessly besotted with the Demon's Spawn.

He had loved Phillip, truly loved him like his very own brother . . . but Claudia was right. He had killed him; at least helped his death along.

Rather a dangerous pattern you have established, old boy. A wild shout of laughter tore from Julian's throat, reverberating against the low gray sky.

Was there ever a time you thought you might simply perish without her? For two years, he had adored her from a distance, thinking he might simply perish every time he saw her. Then he had seen her at Chateau la Claire and something deep inside had broken free, rising like Lazarus from the ashes of his soul. It was plain, Julian thought hopelessly, that he had thought he might simply perish without her for a very long time. And what had he done? Ruined her.

Ah yes, Julian, know ye in his death the quality of love . . .

He knew it. He knew it like an arrow that pierced his heart and twisted about, up and down and around, torturing him unto death.

That arrow would not harm Sophie. God save him, if there was one thing he must do right, it was Sophie. That wretched girl needed him, whether she realized it or not, and he would gladly commend himself to hell if he could not keep her from harm.

Seventeen.

C LAUDIA FOUND IT impossible to eat or sleep after Julian had dragged Sophie away. Alone in the dining room the following evening, she frowned at the thick slice of cake the footman Robert had served her, from which she had removed all the raisins and arranged them into a frowning face-with spectacles-on the edge of her plate.

She toyed with the notion of summoning Ann and Eugenie to tell them what Julian had done, but thought better of it. Such news was best delivered by The Rake himself. But banishment? It was so primitive! Sarah Cafferty had been banished to Cornwall amidst a highly publicized scandal-it was an abominable practice, demeaning to women everywhere. And as hard as she tried, Claudia just could not reconcile the man who had coldly forced Sophie into that chaise with the man whose eyes had betrayed the ravages of a loss so deep it pained him still.

Their argument yesterday had enlightened her to a side of Julian she had never seen before, and damn him if it wasn't a vulnerable side. Claudia never would have believed that Julian Dane had a vulnerable bone in his body, not in a thousand years.

She suddenly dropped her fork and buried her face in her hands, miserably confused. There she was, about to feel sympathy for a tyrant again. What difference did it make that he had been hurt by one of his many paramours? It certainly didn't give him the right to whisk Sophie away like a mere piece of property. Nor did it excuse the fact that he obviously placed Sophie's happiness lower than propriety. It was so very arrogant of him to believe that some people were better than others by virtue of their birth or gender!

Claudia lifted her head and pushed the plate aside, her gaze fixing on the candelabrum in the center of the table. Last night, she had lain in bed trying to make sense of a situation that seemed increasingly complex. As the days passed, she was having a harder and harder time reconciling the arrogant, superior, vainglorious man with the one who showed streaks of kindness. It was impossible to ignore the nights that he and Arthur Christian left together, undoubtedly bound for Madame Farantino's. It was impossible to believe that man was the same man who would gently rub her back when her courses pained her, or send bouquets of fresh hothouse flowers to her teas when the other husbands derided their wives for attending, or get down on his hands and knees to frolic with Jeannine and Dierdre.

Yet he was the same man who seemed uninterested in her cause, with the exception of having made a list of names he would persuade to fulfill their pledge. Sometimes she felt as if he was managing her like one of his holdings, leaving her unchecked, unfettered, as long as she did not suddenly twist off wildly in a direction he did not expect.

But there was evidence of a softer, unguarded side of him she could not deny, as the argument yesterday had so poignantly pointed up to her. Nor could she deny that the kindness and patience he showed Eugenie's daughters often made her ache with a longing for something more between them, a distant hope that perhaps they might produce children one day. And what of Tinley? How could she ignore the fact that the doddering old man could scarcely lift a feather duster anymore, yet Julian ignored his senility, sparing the man's pride and allowing him to feel needed?

All right, but how, then, could he ignore Sophie's heartache, decide what she should feel and whom she should feel it for? Sophie's devastation meant nothing to him, and Claudia could not bear that. I am honor bound as your friend to tell you that Phillip is not the sort of man for you.

No! She did not want to relive that, not again, but Mother of God, how could she not? How could she ignore his callousness, once to her and now to Sophie, as if they were inanimate objects, incapable of thinking or feeling for themselves?

"Madam? Shall I remove the cake?"

With a thin smile, Claudia responded politely, "Please, Robert. And pour a spot of port, would you?"

Robert blinked, hesitated for a fraction of a second, but quickly recovered and returned with the port a few moments later. Claudia thanked him, sliding her gaze to the long green velvet drapes as she sipped the heavy wine.

Banished.

The more she dwelled on it, the more incensed she became.

His ghosts and Sophie's sobs chased Julian all the way back to London, reverberating in his head until he was quite sure he was deaf.

Surely there was something he could do short of locking her away at Kettering Hall, although he was damned if he could think of what. By the time he reached the outskirts of London, he was physically and mentally numb, propelled forward by the simple but overpowering desire to see Claudia's brilliant smile, perhaps even feel her arms around him. An insane hope, he knew, particularly after their argument, yet part of him stubbornly hoped that she had come to see his reasoning.

At St. James Square, he handed the reins of his mount to a young groom and wearily dragged himself into the foyer. Handing his leather gloves to Tinley, he said, "Have a bath drawn at once and inform Lady Kettering I have returned. I should like it very much if she would join me for supper."

"Might like it very well, my lord, but she's already dining," Tinley casually informed him, and hobbled off. A footman stepped forward to receive his cloak.

Julian sliced an impatient look across the footman. "See to it that he at least remembers the bath, would you?" he asked tersely, and strode across the foyer, headed for the dining room, trying hard to crush the adolescent excitement the mere mention of her name always sparked in him.

That he missed Claudia so badly in the space of twenty-four hours was unnerving as hell, made him feel silly and weak and quite awkward in his skin. Even as a young lad, he'd never been so bloody infatuated with anyone. It outraged him that his body seemed to think she was the only cure to the infernal rash in his heart. Yet when he turned the corner and neared the dining room, he had to force himself to walk and not sprint to her side.

A footman attending the dining room door opened it for him; as he came across the threshold, a startled Claudia came hastily to her feet, clutching a linen napkin. She wore a satin gown fitted tightly to her, the color of a cloudless blue sky trimmed in white. Around her slender neck was a triple strand of pearls, matching the large tear-drop pearls that dangled from her earlobes. Her hair had been piled carelessly on top of her head; little wisps of curls draped her neck.

Arrested, Julian paused, staring at one long curl that spiraled down to her shoulder. It amazed him that his mind's eye never seemed to capture her true beauty. "You look . . . lovely," he remarked, well aware that the words hardly did her justice.

One delicate hand came up and fidgeted with a teardrop earring. "Thank you. Did you just return? I thought you would remain at Kettering Hall for a time," she said quietly.

"I thought it best that I leave at once."

Her hand stilled and she looked at him. "You are very good at doing what you think is best, aren't you?"

The rash flared in his stomach; all at once he felt a fool. What exactly had he thought would happen? That Claudia would rush into his open arms, as anxious to see him as he was her? The hell she would. The woman despised him; it hardly mattered to her that he had just endured one of the worst days of his life, and he felt the pain of raw anger rumble through him. "You have already made your opinion known to me. I see no reason to go over it again," he said tightly.

She cocked her head to one side as if to assess just how beastly he was, and folded her arms defensively across her middle. "Yes, well, you have made it quite clear that my opinion is so meaningless to you that you will not even do me the courtesy of listening."

God in heaven, not this, not now! He had only wanted to look at her, just hold her, not argue! Not speak. "Your opinion," he drawled, sauntering to the table, "is inconsequential. I have made my decision, and that is the end of it."

"No," she said simply.

"No?" he echoed, incredulously.

"I will not be dismissed, Julian-"

"And I will not be pushed into discussing this further-"

"I shan't leave this room until I have said what I must, whether you want to hear it or not! It is cruel of you to treat Sophie so abominably! She loves Sir William, yet you would apparently rather see her miserable before you would allow her to follow her heart!"

God grant him patience. "Claudia," he began, "Stanwood is-"

"A baronet!" she exclaimed hotly. "But that's not good enough for you, not with your ridiculous ideas of who is proper for whom! Can't you see that you are playing God with people's lives? This is exactly the same as what you did to me, do you even understand that?"

What he had done to her? Confusion clouded Julian's brain for a moment-he knew very well what he had done to her, he had ruined her for chrissakes, but for the life of him, he could not understand how that related to Sophie. "Pardon?" he asked stupidly.

Claudia made a sound of exasperation. "You tried to banish me, too, in a way. You never thought I was good enough for Phillip, which is why you strove to keep him from me. When that didn't work, you took it upon yourself to try to convince me that I was not good enough for him, hoping that I might slip away! As if. . ." she choked on a strangled cry and tightened her arms about her. "As if it was any consequence to you at all! But he was your friend, and apparently you would rather he had courted Madame Farantino than me! You never thought I was good enough for him, you don't think Stanwood is good enough for Sophie, and you don't care who you hurt! But Sophie loves Stanwood, just as I loved Phillip!"

Her words stabbed clean through his heart like a knife, and he suddenly could not seem to catch his breath. It was impossible . . . impossible that she could have misinterpreted his warning so badly! He opened his mouth, but he was too stunned to think, much less speak. She had loved Phillip . ..

"No! No, no. Let us be completely honest," she continued, almost hysterically, and behind her, the two footmen exchanged uneasy glances. "You never thought I was good enough for you! From the time I was a little girl, you made that very clear, but I was just a girl, Julian, barely old enough to know what I was doing! Yet you let me know then that I was somehow inferior, not quite up to your standards, and you still do! You think it perfectly all right to have your paramours, but you've no idea how painful it is," she said, her voice breaking, "so painful that when Sophie told me you objected to Stanwood because of his rank, I urged her, unequivocally, to follow her heart at all costs and defy your blasted convention-"

Fury exploded hot inside of him. "You did what?" he roared, unnoticing of the footmen slipping out of the room.

The sound of his voice shook Claudia from her tirade; her eyes widened. "I. . . I told her to follow her heart, not some silly rule about who is good enough for whom," she said with much less confidence.

He would strangle her. In the morning, the authorities would find the body of his wife with those words strangled from her lips. Julian leaned over, grasped the edge of the table tightly as he fought to keep his rage in check. The ignorant chit had no idea what she had done, no concept of the peril she had put Sophie in! "William Stanwood," he said, struggling to keep his voice even, "does not love Sophie. He is a profligate. He wants nothing more than her goddam fortune. His debts are staggering and it is a bloody miracle he has not as yet landed in debtors' prison. His solicitor has inquired into every one of my accounts in an effort to ascertain the exact sum of Sophie's dowry and the annuity our father left her." He lifted his gaze and glared at her. "And furthermore, wife, it is widely known among the men of the ton that Stanwood delights in beating the whores he lies with, apparently deriving some sort of sick satisfaction from it!"

Color rapidly drained from Claudia's face. She moved awkwardly forward, catching herself on the back of a dining chair. "W-what?" she whispered hoarsely. "Sophie said--"

"Oh, for God's sake, Claudia! Sophie would have said anything! She is terribly unsure of herself and quite certain she is in love with that degenerate!"

With a blink of her eyes, Julian could see the truth sink in. "Oh no. Oh no-"

"Lord God, what a tremendous mistake I made in trusting you and Sophie!" he continued hotly. "I had no idea that she was sneaking around behind my back, much less that my wife knew of it and condoned it! Had you told me, I surely would have given you every vile reason to be alarmed! But as it was, I found no reason to repeat such obscene things to the women I would protect!" he fairly shouted.

"My God," she whispered, her eyes roaming wildly about the room. "Oh my God! I am so sorry, Julian. I didn't know-"

"That's rather the problem, isn't it, Claudia?" he spat contemptuously. "You are so caught up in your dema-goguery that you are blind to the truth-blind to everything! The walls you have erected prevent us from speaking about anything of import! I confess I am quite at a loss as to how to bring them down, and I daresay I am sick to death of trying!"

She said nothing; just bit her lip and lowered her gaze.

It was the same as always; she closed herself off to him, the doors between them slamming shut and locking. His discomfort was suddenly suffocating. He jerked around, wanting her gone from his sight. "Leave me," he said curtly, and stalked to the sideboard, prepared to drink every drop of liquor he could find.

"Julian, I-"

"Go!" he bellowed, and heard the rustle of her satin skirts, her ragged breathing as she moved to the door.

"Claudia!" he said sharply. He glanced over his shoulder, watched her head bow as if she prayed for strength before she turned to face him.

"One more thing." God, Kettering, don't do this. He was a fool, a goddamned fool, he thought as he glared at her stricken face, on the verge of laying his heart bare to her. "You have misjudged me from the beginning. That night I called on you before Phillip died . .."-he saw the hurt flash in her eyes-"I did not mean to imply that you were not good enough for Phillip. I meant to convey that he was not good enough for you."

She gasped in disbelief, her hand fluttering to her throat.

"When the rumors began to circulate that he meant to offer for you, I could not bear to think that you, of all people, the one bright light in the whole bloody ton, would innocently marry a drunkard facing ruin. I could not bear to ever see you unhappy, and frankly, I could not bear to see another man have you. If you intend to crucify me all our days, at least do it for the right reason." He paused, summoning every ounce of his courage. "I. . . I loved you. I loved you from the moment I saw you at the Wilmington Ball and every moment of these last two years. There never were any paramours, Claudia. There never was anyone but you."

Her other hand covered the one at her throat, and Julian wondered if she meant to be ill. Whatever she thought, he stopped there, acutely aware that she stared at him as if he had lost his bloody mind. Perhaps he had, at long last. His little confession now seemed absurdly insipid, and embarrassed, he turned back to the sideboard. "There is nothing more, no more startling revelations," he said sarcastically. "You've nothing to fear from me. I am quite recovered from it now."

"Julian. . ."

The soft whisper of his name sounded exactly as he had heard it in so many dreams. But it was too late. "Leave me!" he said roughly, and closed his eyes. After what seemed like minutes, he heard the door shut softly. He picked up the bottle of wine and walked unsteadily to the table, falling heavily into a chair. And there he remained for several hours, attempting to drown the image of her that bobbed about in his mind's eye.

If Claudia had had a bottle of wine at her disposal, she, too, would have attempted to drown herself. As it was, she was pacing her rooms wildly, unable to believe- to accept -how very wrong she might have been. Was she truly such a fool? She pressed her fists against her temples, trying to stave off the piercing headache that descended on her the moment she left the dining room.

How could she possibly have been so bloody stupid? Disgust filled her-disgust with herself, for so boldly advising Sophie to defy him without fully knowing the facts, even after Julian had tried to tell her. She had let her indignation guide her and was as ashamed as she was mortified-oh, Lord, the note she had slipped into Sophie's valise, urging her to follow love! Claudia choked on a sob, sickened by her impetuosity.

But what truly made her heart ache was that she had, apparently, misinterpreted his call two long years ago.

So convinced she knew his character, she had twisted his words around, inventing her own story to fit what she believed of him. He had meant to help her. But no, she could not see that then, would not listen to a Rake who made her heart soar with longing. She had believed the worst of him for two years more, wanting to blame him for Phillip's death. It had been easier that way, easier to believe Julian had led Phillip to his demise than to believe the worst of Phillip.